Alumnus/Entrepreneur Featured on CNN

Hajj Flemings, a 1996 Michigan Tech alumnus who is now a Detroit area entrepreneur,
is one of eight African-American tech start-up company founders who will be featured
on CNN's "Black in America" series, airing next Sunday, Nov. 13, at 8 p.m.

Flemings, who earned a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Tech, is
the founder of Brand Camp University, which offers personal branding training. The
Birmingham, Mich., resident is also CEO and co-founder of Gokit, an online service
that enables people to manage their online presence across a variety of platforms.

Sunday's CNN program, the fourth in the cable news network's "Black in America" series,
is called "The New Promised Land--Silicon Valley." It follows the 9-week odyssey
of Flemings and his fellow minority tech start-up entrepreneurs as they lived and
worked in California's Silicon Valley, networking with leaders of some of the largest
and most successful tech firms in the nation.

"We immersed ourselves in the tech start-up ecosystem of Silicon Valley," Flemings
explains. The minority entrepreneurs lived together in a 1,300 square foot rental
house, a crowded but productive boot camp for eight dynamic entrepreneurs. During
that time, they received invaluable advice, met potential investors and "worked to
develop our start-ups," Flemings says.

He will be on a panel discussing his experience in Silicon Valley and answering questions
from young people, their families and teachers, at an invitation-only preview of
the CNN program on Wednesday, Nov. 9 in Detroit. The preview is sponsored by the Detroit Area Pre-College Engineering
Program (DAPCEP), Brand Camp University and the United Auto Workers-General Motors
(UAW-GM) at its Center for Human Resources. It is designed to strengthen students'
motivation and show young people and their families the relationship between education
and professional achievement.

Flemings himself has some forthright advice for those young people. "We live in an
information-based economy," he says. "Anyone who wants to get and keep a high-paying
job needs the right kind of education, and they need to know how to operate in this
knowledge-based world."

Michigan Technological University is a public research university, home to more than
7,000 students from 60 countries around the world. Founded in 1885, the University
offers more than 120 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in science and technology,
engineering, forestry, business and economics, health professions, humanities, mathematics,
and social sciences. Our beautiful campus in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula overlooks
the Keweenaw Waterway and is just a few miles from Lake Superior.